When Verizon announced that sales of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play were finally about to begin, it said that it would start accepting pre-orders today and have the smartphone in stores starting May 26. Customers who got a pre-order in were told that their phones would ship by May 25 at the latest. While that’s nice to know, it looks like Verizon neglected to mention the more interesting side of that coin: when Xperia Play pre-orders would ship at the earliest. Believe it or not, there’s a chance that if you got your pre-order in early enough it may have already shipped out, at least according to reports from some Verizon users.

Supposedly, some of the first people to jump on the Xperia Play bandwagon in the US are receiving email notifications that their phones have already been picked up by FedEx for delivery. Without seeing the tracking information, it’s possible that these notification just represent Verizon creating the delivery order in FedEx’s system, but the screenshot we’ve seen says in no uncertain terms that the phone has actually shipped, leaving Verizon’s hands.

We’ll have to see if any of these Plays actually show up early, but right now it’s looking like a distinct possibility that many users could have their smartphones by early next week.